B'desh's founding leader Mujib's killer deported from US

Dhaka, June 18 (UNI) After nine years of leading fugitive life in the US, one of the killers of Bangladesh's founding father and first President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was brought to the Bangladeshi capital today from Los Angeles as a US court rejected his appeal to stay there.

Lt Col (retd) Mohiuddin Ahmed, one of 12 former army officers handed down death sentences for assassinating Sheikh Mujib on August 15, 1975 through a bloody putsch, was deported by the US Homeland Security after a district court in California turned down his last appeal on June 14.

All the killers left Bangladesh after the coup and were absorbed in Bangladesh Missions abroad following an understanding with the post-75 regimes.

Mohiuddin, 60, was a Major at the time of the coup when most members of Sheikh Mujib's family were killed and his three-and-a-half-year-old elected government was toppled. Maj Ahmed was tried in absentia and sentenced to death in 1998 during the term of Mujib's daughter Sheikh Hasina as the country's Prime Minister.

While serving as a Bangladeshi diplomat to a West Asian country, Maj Mohiuddin entered the United States on a visitor's visa in 1996. Since then, he had fought a long legal battle to stay there.

Maj Mohiuddin was brought to Zia International Airport this (Monday) afternoon by a plane of Thai Airlines amidst tight security. Two officers of the US Homeland Security escorted the condemned convict. He was brought to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court before being sent to Dhaka Central Jail.

Maj Mohiuddin's lawyers said he would appeal to the Supreme Court against his death sentence.

Of the convicts, only four, Lt Col (Retd) Syed Farooq Rahman, Lt Col (Retd) Sultan Shahriar Rashid Jhan, Lt Col (retd) Mohiuddin and Maj (retd) Bazlur Rahman were behind bars. One died abroad while two are still living in Canada.

The death sentence has not been executed as the appeal is pending before the Supreme Court.

UNI